Doctor from Minsk says they can't keep quiet this time


A doctor of ultrasound diagnostics, working in Minsk hospital, has told Belsat about victims of torture by law enforcement officers. According to the doctor, at night, August 11-12, the hospital received many patients, who were beaten and tortured. Doctors decided that if they did not tell about it, they would become accomplices to the crime.

“It is not even a shock, it is simply impossible to imagine that such a thing is even possible in our country. I can only say what I saw in person. I’m not on duty every day, but I worked at night from 11 to 12 August. At that time, we were receiving beaten people.

I had four badly beaten patients brought to me. There were, of course, patients with bullet wounds, other injuries, but they were sent to other hospitals. I saw a lot of bruises on my patients with my own eyes. People were blue from beatings with no untouched place. The bruising is known to repeat the shape of the object that inflicted it. We saw baton marks on the victims’ bodies. One of the young guys had traces of the sole of the police boots right on his face. It’s just that there was a kick mark on the face. Why would you kick a man in the face like that, I don’t understand.

There were mostly young 20-year-olds. They all said that they were beaten during arrests, then in vans, then in the police departments. They said that they were grabbed right in the middle of the street while some of them went out to the store, others were coming home, they denied participating in the rallies. But even if they did take part in pickets, it doesn’t mean you can beat people up. We, doctors, are shocked, sometimes it was just impossible to hold back tears”.

During the coronavirus wave, there was even a negative attitude towards doctors for hiding the information and being afraid to voice it. And now doctors suddenly began to talk about crimes. Did a civic position woke up with the doctors?

“You must understand that everyone was afraid for themselves. “That was the position. But we just didn’t wake up then. Back then, everybody just kept quiet. On the other hand, I, for one, wasn’t treating any patients with coronavirus. It doesn’t matter if I heard it there? Well, that’s not quite right. I didn’t have any information, and whoever did was worried they might get fired. But after the last events, we even discussed in chats that if we keep quiet, we will not be different from those criminals who tortured people, their people. Here we can’t keep silent and appeal to various agencies, including foreign ones, to tell the truth and cover as best as possible”.

“I cannot say that I have seen a raped patient or a gynecologist who would confirm such facts, so I will not talk about it. I’ve heard of such cases, but they circulate at the gossip level. As for boys, this is indeed the fact that they were raped with batons”.

Are there any patients among your patients in serious condition who could become disabled?

“Fortunately, no, there were no such severe internal injuries. The bruises will go away. One young man had thrombophlebitis, an inflammation of the vein. After he was kicked in the legs, his veins were damaged. But it won’t cause disability either, it’ll heal over time. But these injuries should not have happened at all.

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